Faculty member Becca Price joins host Bonni Stachowiak once again as a guest on the podcast Teaching in Higher Ed. This episode is called “How to develop ourselves and others through classroom observations,” and Price discusses how much instructors can learn from watching each other teach. Her expertise in this topic grew from her work as Executive Director of the Science Teaching Experience Program (STEP), through which she has completed about 400 classroom observations. As a faculty member in IAS, she is especially fond of applying teaching tricks she’s learned from colleagues outside her discipline.
A lot of great stuff in here! Thanks for sharing.
I’m a big fan of the jigsaw technique, which I’ve seen used sucessfully across many disciplines.
Situations where it hasn’t worked as well seem to have failed when the teacher was less engaged than they needed to be, or didn’t emphasize—and adequately support—the stages where synthesis was needed. Some of this strikes me as a function of class size. How large are the classes you use the jigsaw in? Do you have thoughts on the optimal size of a class for the jigsaw to work (because classes can be too small too!)?
But this is critical, above all else, imo. You say:
> What I’ve been concentrating on in my teaching over the last—well, really since 2016 especially, has been the emotional, the affective part of the classroom where I want them to enjoy what they’re learning, not just learn it. That’s part of retention in STEM as well, is enjoying what they do.
This gets at the heart of it, the art of teaching that goes beyond the paint-by-numbers application of technique, enabled in part by the self-reflection and community you mention:
> I think so much of improvement on teaching is self-reflection. I also think that collaborative groups with colleagues at other institutions are incredibly helpful.
Of course, most important of all: everyone should watch _Cunk on Earth_! It’s a pity there are so few episodes 🙂